NC DPI
Schoolnet - Designing Instructional Sequences
Bowles:
Chapman:
Gardner:
Jackson:
Rainey:
Urbanski:
M/F:
Donna Bowles
Clark Chapman
Joyce Gardner
Angela Jackson
Katie Rainey
Dan Urbanski
Male/Female Speaker
Urbanski:
Today is Thursday, March 5, 2015, and, as we do every Thursday at this time, we
are holding a Schoolnet webinar. Schoolnet, as you know, is a component within
the Home Base ecosystem. Today, we are blessed, we are excited, we are — oh
my gosh — there are so many emotions going through this announcer’s little
mind right now, but we’re going to be talking a little bit about instructional
resources inside the Schoolnet environment; but instead of just me showing you a
little bit about the tools, we have three very special people that are going to be
joining us and sharing some information about said Schoolnet tool.
Hey, there it is. I just called them the all-star panel because there’s so
many out there, it’s just — I don’t want to clog up a screen with the
announcements, but for those of you on the line that might have heard of the
Governor’s Teacher Network, and in particular, Pathway 2, there are two
pathways; the first is with the professional development side of the world, and the
second is with instructional resources and sequences. Today, what we’re going to
have is our panel is going to talk to us about their experiences using Schoolnet to
help facilitate them building their resources, lesson plans, instructional units and
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things of that nature. So a good portion of this session is going to be reserved for
them to shout out and discuss a little bit about that tool.
So we’ll be hearing from them in a moment. But before I go there, I do
have some other folks here in the room also with me that are here at the NCDPI
building. I have from DPI, Joyce Gardner. Joyce, hello.
Gardner:
Hello. Joyce Gardner, the executive director for the Governor’s Teacher Network.
I’m glad to see so many of you here today.
Urbanski:
And we have related with Joyce, with have Angela —
Jackson:
Jackson.
Urbanski:
Jackson.
Jackson:
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. We’re excited to be here. I’m the program director
for the Governor’s Teachers Network, and excited to see the resources we have
available in Schoolnet, and about how these are designed.
Urbanski:
Yes, excellent. So with my two trusty colleagues in here, and myself, again, Dan
Urbanski. I am with the Educator Effectiveness Division with the North Carolina
Department of Public Instruction. We will be guiding you for the next hour and
talking to our panelists a little bit later in the show. And I’d like to kind of set the
stage: we know that there are various user types, or users that could be accessing
the Schoolnet system. Today, our cast of characters will include primarily just
teachers, so everything that you see today will be through the lens of how a
teacher would access the system and build their instructional resources.
We do know that there are three primary roles in the system, that of
teacher, of staff and then a leadership person. The teacher — imagine that
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whatever that person needs to do in the classroom, that’s what their permissions
allow them to do; instructional resources, maybe build a test, maybe work on their
lesson planners, maybe pull reports about their sections. So you’ll be seeing
things framed from this lens here today.
For those of you new to this Home Base ecosystem, right now we are
using our single sign-on capability as one of the features of Home Base. We sign
on through a page that looks probably very familiar to what you’re seeing on the
screen right now. After username and password is entered, you will land on —
well, it might not look like this anymore. This slide is getting a little bit old, but a
Powerschool landing page for those of you that log in. At the very bottom of the
page, you will see that there’s a Schoolnet link, and clicking onto that Schoolnet
link will take you into the wonderful, magical world of Schoolnet live. And this is
just a reminder for me to click over to Schoolnet live. Let me see if I can make
this a little bigger here for you, folks.
Okay, so for the next few moments, what I would like to lead you down
on the path would be — our path would be a quick demonstration of some of the
key components that our Governor’s Teacher Network participants are primarily
working in. And in Home Base — excuse me, in a Schoolnet environment, we
have the ability to — you might notice — this might look familiar in the upper
left-hand corner of the screen where my mouse is hovering, we have three
modules within Schoolnet; there’s the school and district data, which allows us to
run and save and publish reports; the classrooms tab, which we’ll be playing with
today. Classroom allows you to run reports on your students, specifically, and
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work to the lesson planner and access your instructional materials. And the
assessment admin area allows you to create, administer, proctor, and test and pull
up and do the same thing for [ph] creating or using test items — passages, rubrics,
things of that nature.
So I’m hovering my mouse over the classrooms tab, and it allows me to
see the dashboard below it again. I’m going to be focusing primarily in the
instructional materials area today. So click in on that link. This is where the
average teacher — actually staff and — with the right permissions — and
leadership will have access to this, as well. This is what allows you to search for
instructional materials that are loaded already into the system, or it allows us to
create instructional resources. And if you’ll notice in the upper right hand corner
where my mouse is clicking, and for those of you that are logged in to your
instance, you can follow along with me, if you’d like to follow.
These are the various types of resources or materials — I use the word
resource sometimes for the word materials. I apologize for that. But for the
materials that I, as a teacher, have access to build, you’ll see that on the screen
now in the little dropdown, and this also is ordered, or the way it’s listed on this
dropdown is the hierarchy of the system that — first we’re able to — I’m going to
go from the granular lowest level and kind of move up the chain, if you will, and
just kind of describe what we have here today. We have resources in the system,
and for Schoolnet, a resource could be any item that might be documents or an
activity, a spreadsheet, a worksheet; it could be a page of information like a PDF
file that’s stored into the system.
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When we have a resource, that’s the lowest level of instructional materials
that you can build that’s not really connected or attached to anything. But
resources, be they student-facing like an activity or a worksheet, or teacherfacing, like maybe — oh, I don’t know; a resource could be like your unpacking
documents or a calendar, a pacing guide, things of that nature. A resource can be
nested or attached or linked to other materials within Schoolnet. An assessment
— the next one under — now, this is not an actual test in Schoolnet; this is —
think of the assessment as something that you’re using for either a formative
assessment process within the classroom, much like maybe, oh, could be a
document that has a task described into it, or something that has an activity that
you’re going to be passing out to the students for them to work on.
Now, those two items will be at the bottom of the food chain, if you will,
and if you move up a little bit, you have a lesson plan. Everybody knows what a
lesson plan is, but these items here — these materials can be aligned and linked to
a lesson plan, so think of them as the — if you look at those Russian nesting dolls,
the tiniest little one inside has a little bit larger one that’s kind of wrapping around
it, would be called a lesson plan. Lesson plans can be nested inside an
instructional unit, and for those of you that have been on some of the webinars in
the past, we know that the hierarchy keeps going higher — that’s why they start it
off with the word higher. Instructional units can be nested into curricular units and
even curriculum, and that actually, by the way, is a plug for the webinar that starts
next week. For those of you that would like to see a little bit about how do you
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build curricular unit — how do I build my curriculum and how do I align that
vertically within my classrooms and my districts — we’ll be talking about that.
But the teacher can build up as high as the instructional unit level. So what
I’d like to demonstrate briefly would be the click-path teachers will use when they
typically create a resource. Now, this hopefully looks familiar to some of you;
you might look at this and say, “Hey, I’ve done this before,” whether it’s for a test
item, whether it’s for a lesson plan or anything in between. The system is going to
ask me to give some descriptions, descriptor advice information — please align
it to a standard — is what the system tells me. The third tab will be actually
creating the content itself, because this is more or less a shell to house your
content — that resource — and then give it some metadata like some meta-tags
for organizers.
So briefly, I’m just going to say that this is my test information, give it my
initials, so it’s a test with Dan Urbanski. I grew up in the math environment, and
for whatever reason, I’m thinking lucky number six today; oh, darn it, Angela. I
was hoping for seven. But my description is that I was making a test resource; I
can give it a time, and say, “Oh, this might take 30 minutes in the classroom.”
It’s going to be an activity. The log in person that I use — see how it
automatically defaults to office, so it’s actually putting in some information that
could be used for like, say, copyright purposes. Who is the publisher? Who is the
author?
I’ve clicked save and continue, so I’ve just kind of given some
descriptions. I am going to — notice how the subject has already been populated
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for me, and it now says, please align this to standards. Oh, hey! Look at this one;
this is great. It’s a rainy day so we’re going to talk about geometry, and I have
now, just by clicking on this path, I have aligned it to math content 6.G.A.4, and it
tells me what it is — awesome. Of course, you would have thought this through;
I’m doing this a little bit briefly for today. Now, say my content is just going to be
a Microsoft Word document; the middle option allows me just to upload that file,
and you’ll see it highlighted on the screen that I am just going to upload a file —
would be an option. Maybe I just want to upload a URL because it’s an open
education resource, I’m able just to give you a URL saying, “This is the most
awesome page that allows the student to — I don’t know — read more about
geometry, and everything in between.”
Or you can use what is called the district template, which is kind of a
misnomer; it’s really the state template that we created — Pearson, the vendor of
the software just has the word district in there, but that’s sort of what I want to
demonstrate a little bit here today, that you can actually build from scratch your
resource material with the district template, and notice how down below, there is
a tab that — I just happen to be on this tab that says resource materials. Well,
maybe this resource is going to everything about geometry — G-E-O. Here I
could put links, I could put images, I can embed video, but imagine now that I’m
actually building this out with a full-blown resource. I can only do one of the
options at a time; I can only either do the template and build out — and this
could be me putting in instructions for something; it could be a teacher-facing
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resource, and I’m writing notes to myself. I can upload a file, but I cannot do both
of them at the same time. I would have to create a separate resource link for that.
But I could put links here, and when I come up to pull it up later, I would
have this information. When I click save and continue, it’s moving the bouncing
ball, if you will, to the tab number three. It’s asking me, all right — tab number
four, excuse me. I got a little bit ahead and behind of myself. Did you want to put
some information here? This is where I like to let people know, the more
information you put in, the easier it is to get something out. So if you want to tag
this not just for yourself, imagine that I’m working in the Governor’s Teachers
Network, and I want all of the teachers across the state of North Carolina to be
able to find my resources easily, I might want to give them some path — some
link information or some way to find this resource, so I would check everything
that applies, and then click the save button.
I have now just created a resource within the Schoolnet environment.
Going down to the bottom of the page, it’s kind of fun — I don’t know why it’s
not next to the save button, but I now go to the bottom left hand corner, click on
view materials, and you will see how a resource within Schoolnet looks, breathes
and lives. Again, you have something that’s probably a little bit more in depth,
but you see the basics here. Tells me a little bit about my description, there’s the
content, everything about geo — did I say geology earlier? Geometry — highly
different, by the way. Maybe that’s why I didn’t do well in geometry.
All right, but enough about me — and there are some of my organizers
and metadata tags, or meta-tags. When I create this resource, I can then edit it, I
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can copy it, gosh, I can even create a test based on this resource, and that would
allow me to pull test items that are aligned to the standards that I created this
resource with. Kind of nifty, eh? Hey, check me out, I’m now going to hover the
mouse over my classrooms tab one more time, click on Instructional Materials
link, and instead of a resource or an assessment — I’ll just leave that one alone.
It’s very — it’s almost identical to the resource — I’m going to create a Lesson
Plan. Wow, doesn’t this look familiar? We had four tabs last time, I believe; we
have five now.
In this, I, again, give us some information. I choose my subject, so now
pretend with me here I am creating a lesson plan built on my sixth grade — did I
say math? I did. And this lesson plan is not just a 30-minute activity; this could
be two days. And look how we could do that; we could add days, weeks and
months. I clicked save and continue, and move on the food chain, just like we did
before, align it to standards. I can align to more than one standard, by the way.
That’s one thing I did not point out before. I can align to more than one subject,
so if this also has a component for reading, or maybe some other topic — like you
could do ELA standards, for instance — and you’ll see more of your robust, high
quality, highly aligned lesson plans and resources. I imagine they would probably
cover more than just one standard.
Notice now that if I choose the district template, I have more than just one
little tab; I have six, seven, or eight — count them, probably even nine or ten tabs.
Looking at some of these names, you’ll see something that hopefully you readily
identify with in the names of the words that are on the tabs. I look at this with my
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good friend and colleague, Dr. Carmella Fair of the NC FALCON (Formative
Assessment Learning Community’s Online Network) fame [ph] for those of you
that ever listen to Dr. Fair speak about the formative assessment process, these
words aligned with some of the key points of that formative assessment process,
such as learning targets and criteria for success.
This is where a teacher would click on these, and each one, more or less, is
a tab that you can enter information or text down below that helps the teacher
guide that person through the fine granular components of the lesson plan. If I
wanted to build this by scratch, I could, or again, like the resource, I could click
either on file, or on URL. I’m just going to put some fun information here right
now as a place holder under learning targets, click save and continue, and then
speed along. This, more or less, is the unique item that was not unique for the
resource. This tells me now, hey Dan, you have a lesson plan and you wanted to
link this to the resources you just created. How would I do that?
I can look in my public materials bank. That’s the first tab, which would
be Schoolnet in its entirety, all 30,000-plus resources. Or I can look in my
materials. Now, since I created this as a teacher, I should be able to find quite
easily — quite easily, by filtering, for my resource in the My Materials [ph] bank.
And I click Go. And it’s probably done alphabetically, so test DU is going to be a
little bit, but let’s play a little bit with the system and say that I wanted the best
circle, I want to build a hexagon, and hey, I don’t know about you — it’s a long
day but coffee by the pound sounds really good. This is where the teacher will go,
not just in the My Materials bank, but imagine now you have — you can go from
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all of the different highly aligned — high quality aligned materials that are in the
system. I’m going to connect those, or link those to my lesson plan, click save and
continue, and again, I can click on some more Bloom-isms [ph], and I can then
give some other tags.
When I view my material, you’ll now see it won’t say the test DU
resource, but here I have my description; I have the content that I’ve actually
written and then again, for simplicity purposes here today, you see that I just had
one tab in learning, targets and criteria for success, but now there’s the standards
that aligned, and all of those wonderful resources. If I did, now, I’m not here to
teach people how to do lesson plans, but if you were my principal, and I had one
standard with possibly three resources and it was going to take up two full days
— is that what I mentioned? I would say this is a highly robust, very rigorous
lesson plan, yes, and that’s why I’m not a principal or somebody in charge of
curriculum instruction or the curricular coach in these schools now a days. That’s
why Dan is only allowed to do webinars, darn it.
So with that, you’ll also see that every once in a while, we do crack a little
bit of funny ha ha’s here. I can do a lot of things with this, and I want to point out
one of the things that I am allowed to do with this; I can edit this by cracking it
back open and saying, “Oh, darn it. My instructional facilitator or my curricular
coach came back and told me it needed to be a little bit more robust, Dan,” so I’m
going to go and add some things. I can make a copy of it, because maybe this one
isn’t good enough and I just want to copy something. Hey, look at that button that
says submit to school bank; I can share my lesson plan with all the teachers in my
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school, and if you were here just a few weeks ago, we’re talk — actually last
week — and you can get a copy of that if you — you’ll see later where to find
some of our webinars that are archived. We can share not only within all the
schools in our district, but we can share with all the districts in our state, as well
as submitting to the state bank, if you want to be part of that state-vetted
collection. So there’s some options for you there.
All right, one last time I’m hovering over here. This one’s going to go
actually a lot quicker because there’s not as much to explain. I am going to now
wave my magic wand over the instructional unit creation button and say go. So
now from the lowest nesting doll up to the big one here that’s about ready to
swallow, if we have what’s going to devour the little stuff below it here, and it’s
shark week over at the Urbanski house, so I’ve got all these references in my
mind to fish and Jaws, and we have now — very, very similar to when you
created a lesson plan, imagine now I’m creating a test instructional unit for math,
and golly, it’s still going to be for sixth grade, and it’s now going to still be for
geometry. This unit will house lesson plans and this one might be — I’m just
making this up, folks, for fun — this might be a two-week instructional unit.
And then housed within this, I would align it to standards by clicking on
my standards button. Of course, you would never do this at the highest levels of
the main or the skill level; you would actually go the sub-topic, or excuse me, the
lowest objective level. I can, now, if I use the district template — again, here, if I
wanted to just link people out to a file — excuse me, there’s a file out on the
Internet — I can, or it’s going to be housed in the Schoolnet banks. That’s what
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we’re working on here today. I have three tabs that they’re asking me questions
again that Carmella, if you are out there listening, I hope you’re proud, they’re
prompting the creator of the instructional unit to say, “All right, talk to me,
cuckoo. What are you goals?” Because without goals this is not going to mean a
whole lot to me. I want to see how robust this is, and tell me what this is going to
do for me, and change the lives of my students in magical ways.
So you would then go in and fill out how would we know, what is your
plan, and how will we respond? So you’re building the template from scratch,
I’m going to just fill it up again, for example purposes. The neat part to point out
here is that I get to link related materials, then it asks me, “Dan, what would you
like to link?” I’m going to search between lesson plans, assessments, and
resources within this framework searching in My Materials for sixth grade math
items. It gives me everything that has been tagged for the sixth grade math. Now,
I can align — excuse me, I can link lesson plans underneath this instructional unit,
as well as other resources. So imagine I have teacher-facing resources that I want
to put in here, that these are notes that say, hey teacher, on day two of week one
within your instructional unit, you might want to be on this pace. Here’s a
calendar; things of that nature.
So I randomly am clicking now, but you would have a very thoughtful
click path on which lesson plans, and which resources you are going to select. As
I am demonstrating now, I scroll to the bottom and the system says yes, I would
like to click on those. Give them again some more tag information, click save,
view My Materials, and I apologize if I was going a little fast there. You now
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have instructional unit, the highest of our hierarchy that the teachers can build;
inside will be information that tells you descriptions — that very in-depth
description of the contents, all of the standards that are aligned. I am now fired
because I just took the — I called this one in; I called this instructional unit in.
Yeah, Dan, you just clicked on the first three standards. Those aren’t even
standards, you might say, and really, really — four lesson plans and one
instructional unit with one resource. Or, wow, Dan, excellent; you have four
lesson plans with your one instructional unit. I thought I heard crickets throughout
the entire state of North Carolina just now. Did I hear crickets? All right.
I am now going to leave the world of full screen, and what I would like to
do is stop here to pause. I got on a roll, ladies and gentleman. Sometimes I get so
excited, I forget to even take a breath. I would like to remind the audience that at
any time, if you have questions, we’re about ready to get into that fun question
and answer period. If you have any questions, type them in that questions box and
we’ll go ahead and do our best to answer them. And so it looks like we’re good;
do we have any? All right. See, this is a review, because these students, they
know. Everybody here — all the student learners are online, right? They’ve been
here for a while, all right. Good job, class, and thank you for that review. If it
helped you, excellent, and if you’ve learned something new, even better. And if it
was a nice review, go share it with a friend because they’re dying to know about
this stuff, as well.
All right, as promised, now as I wave my computer panel mouse back into
my PowerPoint, this is the part that, you know, when I was typing this, people
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asked, “Are we really allowed to pass notes in class, Dan,” because I don’t know
about you but I’m this side of 50 — I won’t say which side — but back then, I got
in trouble for passing notes. But this is actually encouraged here. We’re actually
trying to network and share, and the whole purpose of the next 35 minutes on this
webinar will be to allow you to hear from people that are going to share out of
some of their experiences. So at this time, this is the fun part, I am going to
hopefully — I’m a gonna — remember that pound of coffee lesson plan? I think I
need that about right now. I can’t even speak correctly — I’m a gonna. I am going
to introduce some people that are part of the Pathway 2 of the Governor’s Teacher
Network initiative program thing — thing? Program. Project. Initiative. There
you go. I know there’s a descriptor there. And I’m going to let them share a little
bit about themselves, and we’re going to talk for a few minutes, and for those of
you at home that are listening, please type in some questions. If one of our
participants on a panel rings out and says something that you’d like to know a
little bit more about, we’ll be happy to ask them your questions for you and I’ll be
kind of like, for those of you — this is going to show my age now — I’ll be that
Phil Donahue person running around with the microphone saying, “Oh, Angela,
we would like to know your feelings about such and such.” So feel free to type
them in; I’ll facilitate some questions, and let’s have some fun.
So first up, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to introduce to you now our
first panelist. I have Katie Rainey [ph]. Katie, are you there today?
Rainey:
I am.
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Urbanski:
Excellent. Great, thank you so much for participating. First of all, and I would like
you to tell me a little bit about yourself. Just kind of say, oh, maybe what district
you work for, and what subject area are you focusing in with your GTN work.
Rainey:
I work in Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools at Flat Rock Middle School,
and I am focusing on eighth grade social studies.
Urbanski:
Excellent, excellent. How long have you been teaching the — teaching and/or,
you know, working in the education field?
Rainey:
I have been in education for four years, and this is my fourth year teaching eighth
grade social studies.
Urbanski:
Excellent, awesome. Love it. Okay, I’m going to move along here on our panel
and going to introduce our next up. We have Donna Bowles. Donna, can you hear
me?
Bowles:
I can.
Urbanski:
All right, same questions to you. Name, what district or charter you’re working
with, and a little bit about your subject expertise that you’re working the Pathway
2 with.
Bowles:
Okay, well, I’m Donna Bowles and I teach sophomore English in Carteret County
at Croatan High School, actually an ocean, and I’ve been teaching for 37 years,
and I have been working on the instructional sequence for sophomores, English II
and creating units, lessons, resources, assessments and activities — you name it.
Urbanski:
Wow, well-rounded. Okay, so see folks, we want to have a very wellrepresentative panel. I think we’ve got it so far, and to round it out, I have Mr.
Clark Chapman. Clark, can you hear me?
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Chapman:
Yes, sir.
Urbanski:
All right, tell us — same question. A little bit about your district, and what focus
area are you working in.
Chapman:
Okay, I’m Clark Chapman. I work in Brunswick County, that’s the southernmost
county in the state. My school is Ashe, in Ashe, North Carolina. It’s near
Shallotte.
Urbanski:
All right.
Chapman:
Yeah, I teach eighth grade math, and Math I, and I’ve taught Math I at that school
for about 20 years, so I have a lot of experience with the Math I and the Algebra I,
in fact.
Urbanski:
So you were probably secretly giggling when I actually said geology, geometry,
oh, maybe it’s this; it’s not quite the same thing. But you were probably sitting
there going, oh, Dan. Shaking your head, weren’t you?
Chapman:
I was definitely muted at that point.
Urbanski:
All right, so here’s the fun part. This is where I would like to have you describe
— each of you, and we can just go one along the line. If you don’t mind, I’ll just
keep the same order, because this is how I have you listed on the registration list.
Katie, then Donna and then Clark. I would like to ask you first, describe, if you
could, for our audience, a little bit about your — the requirements that were given
to you for your GTN work, because not everybody was the same. Is that correct,
Katie?
Rainey:
I’m guessing so. In social studies, they have asked us to do instructional units, and
they want us to do at least 45 days, so it varies between each project of how many
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units that is. For me, it’s three, and within the instructional units to create lesson
plans and resources for everyone.
Urbanski:
Okay, and were you asked to do anything assessment related, like any assessment
components?
Rainey:
With each of my units, I do have a performance task; sometimes it’s, you know,
the traditional assessment or other, you know, kind of test assessment or whether
it’s, you know, project-based.
Urbanski:
Okay, so help me, Dan, because there’s some things that I just — in my mind, I’m
like, okay, now, when I use the word assessment, sometimes I always go to test.
Are these things maybe test items in Schoolnet, or this is more of an assessment
activity task like you described? How is that going to be housed in Schoolnet?
Do you —
Rainey:
I put it right within my lessons, just link it right within the lesson plans.
Urbanski:
Okay, so you’re referring — so when I describe the assessment next to the
resource, things of that nature —
Rainey:
Yes.
Urbanski:
Not necessarily a test item that will be placed on an assessment.
Rainey:
No, they’re all linked.
Urbanski:
Okay, Donna you’re up. Share us a little bit about what I mentioned earlier that I
want to kind of take a step back. The requirements or the deliverables, if you will,
were more or less the same. Some people, I believe that you — some GTNers, if
you will, the GTN folks might have had like, say, two to three, or two to four
instructional units to build, or two to four lesson plans, what have you. So there
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was a range; it wasn’t a specific number. So I didn’t want to say like, oh my gosh,
one person is doing twice the work and half the work, but there’s certain areas
that are — what I’m trying to highlight here today with the folks, you’ll see that
there’s different components that are built in there, and different subject areas,
okay. So Donna, what about you? What types of proj — you mentioned before
but repeat for us here, because I don’t think I was taking notes at that point, what
you’re actually building and working on in your sequence.
Bowles:
Well, I have been creating two units for sophomore English II. The first unit spans
about five to six weeks of activities — well, lessons, activities, resources,
assessments — in English, of course, writing assessments, and then project-based
assessments with scoring rubrics. All the lessons are described in real detail, and
they could — a brand new teacher could follow these lessons, or, of course, a
veteran teacher. All of the activities are described and have suggested responses
for class discussion questions, and worksheets and handouts, and it’s really allinclusive.
I would say that our units probably will — at least I know I can speak for
myself — could replace a textbook. Now, my two units cover six weeks each, so
not an entire semester, but have everything a teacher needs to teach, assess, the
whole bit.
Urbanski:
Wow, excellent, excellent. Now, okay, okay. I was just looking at some of my
notes here, and Clark, same questions to you. What were you — in your
sequences, kind of describe roughly what your final product is hoping to be, if it’s
not quite completed yet, or where you’re headed.
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Chapman:
Okay, well, I wanted a theme that would provide an interesting context for the
math, and pull together the nine weeks’ worth of standards [ph]. So I picked a unit
about renewable energy, and the first unit is mainly got the geometry of wind
turbine, and that includes transformation and line and angle [ph] relationships of
that nature. A second unit talks about marine power, and how they’re going to
build some wind turbines off the North Carolina coast, and they had read some
articles about it. So I felt that would be real topical for the kids and we could get
into some of the research and background to make it more real.
And the third unit, it’s going to follow along with that, and discusses
linearity and I felt I could bring in the science of electricity, because basically
Ohm’s Law is about proportion. So I’ve been really trying to bring the context of
real world material to the math, to make it more real for the kids.
Urbanski:
That is excellent, and I imagine every time we hear — for the casual observer, the
casual person within your subject area of expertise, when I read something in the
paper or online and it says, well, in North Carolina, they’re exploring, toying
with, or what have you, wind mill farms or whatever — I’m sure there’s a
technical term — these kids will be able to make that connection as well, with all
your students. That’s fabulous.
Bowles:
Plus he’s using the standards of mathematical practice by really trying to make it
real-world relevant and actual real-world problem solving.
Urbanski:
Great. All right, well, thank you so much to all three of you for that. So reminder
to the audience here at home, you hear that we have three different subjects, each
within, you know, obviously their area of expertise, but different takes on the
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overall requirements for the deliverables, with their own flair and their — sounds
like a little bit of their own interest and personalities put in there. When I think
about creating lesson plans, and structuring this, I’m doing this for my
instructional classroom, there’s some things that I’m going, oh my gosh, I love
this part, but man, this one’s always challenged me. When you were building
these items — or excuse me, materials — and you’re linking and you’re
researching, if you wanted to say, like, what — if you can identify what you
might have enjoyed the most with what your work has had you do within the
GTN, what would that be? Katie?
Rainey:
Can you repeat the question again? You came in and out a little bit.
Urbanski:
Sorry about that. Building this, you’re using a software tool to really breathe life
into lesson plans and units. So knowing that it’s going to be an online tool, what
did you enjoy the most about using Schoolnet to help facilitate some of this life
into your instruction?
Rainey:
Well, the part that I like best is the — how you can really use this to be, you
know, a total online tool to take that — to take it to be kind of paperless, in a
sense; that you can schedule it, it’s all located in one area. With us in WinstonSalem Forsyth, it can be our lesson planner; it’s our data manager; it’s also our
grade book; being able to contact with parents and link it directly into sharing
things with parents, that has been the best part for me, because all the stuff that
I’ve done for GTN, I’ve applied directly to my classroom to make sure that it
works.
Urbanski:
Excellent, excellent, Donna?
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Bowles:
Well, I think to use your term, as a GTNer, I think what I have enjoyed the most
about putting my two units together is locating resources and, because it’s
English, different texts to use in text sets, that are not traditional, that have not
necessarily been used throughout English (instruction) for many years. So it was
interesting, my first unit, which is on children’s rights in Africa and
predominantly focuses on child soldiers and child refugees; I learned so much
about those two topics by reading and reading and researching. And so I found it
really enjoyable to create something new that I knew that would not just excite the
students, but the teachers.
My second unit is on women’s rights in the Middle East, and I’m just
having a blast with that one, because that’s a whole new area for me to explore
and to be able to be creative in putting text sets together, and including
technology, and all kinds of neat stuff in these lessons. It’s really been a lot of fun
for me.
Urbanski:
That’s exciting, and we know what happens when you start sharing that
enjoyment with your students, as something that you’re interested in. Do you
think they can tell when you’re actually teaching this, your students?
Bowles:
Oh, yes. I mean, discussing the rules that women need to follow in the Middle
East, I mean, I can’t seem to get the kids to stop talking about it. They’re, you
know, really interested; they don’t have a lot of that kind of base knowledge about
other cultures, so it’s new for them, and them to be able to take their interest into
an actual reading assignment, and work on a standard skill, it makes it a lot easier
for the teacher.
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Urbanski:
How exciting, how exciting. Clark, what about you? Some of the most enjoyable
parts about using the software tool to facilitate your sequences?
Chapman:
Okay, well, I’m really excited about making interesting activities. I think it all
starts with something that the kids would enjoy, and really catch onto. So it’s also
a challenge to create something original, because after 20 years or so, you kind of
worry that maybe this has been done before. So you try to come up with
something that might be different, and that’s the part that’s really been fun. And I
also have a background in art and architecture, so I’ve kind of enjoyed making
some of the graphics, because when you’re talking about geometry, you want
these diagrams to look actually presentable and attractive. And I try to cut and
paste those, or copy and paste those and put them into the units, when we’re
trying to — if they’re searching for it, they can actually see like a screen shot or
so of these designs. And I think it tries to sell the lessons that way.
Urbanski:
Excellent. Now, we know that it’s not all fun and games. Show of hands
throughout the audience right there — oh, I did a funny for radio, didn’t I?
Schoolnet is kind of new to a lot of us, isn’t it? And with that newness, you might
have had some challenges, right, ladies and gentlemen? If you can point out — as
you’re building, I think the most experienced person in the state might have had
two years’ experience with Schoolnet, unless you’ve used the tool outside of the
scope that we’re doing here with the state. You might have used it from another
district or another — somewhere else outside of North Carolina.
But knowing this, what are some challenges, or things that maybe — oh,
man — that you scratch your head and say, “I really did not enjoy this part.” If
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you had to answer that, Katie, we’ll start with you in the top again. What would
that be?
Rainey:
It was just learning how to navigate, you know, the tool itself. You know, we
started actually — since I went to GTN this summer, I took it back to my
principal because we were re-doing our lesson plan format that we have to turn in
every week anyway, so I said, “Since this is the way the state’s going, why not
just go ahead and use this?” and we bought into it. And at the beginning of the
year, it was hard because when we would hit the save and complete button, or
save and continue, excuse me, it wouldn’t save our lesson plan. So finding out the
little quirks in the program was hard, and then being able to communicate those to
a variety of teachers, whether they taught sixth grade, eighth grade, or even the
encore, or even EC, because all of us are required to do lesson plans.
Urbanski:
Right, right, okay. Donna?
Bowles:
Well, I think that what’s been the most difficult is finding the time. You know, as
a, obviously, classroom teacher, I have to find time outside of the class to put
these, you know, pretty detailed lessons and resources together. And I have found
— and my lessons, by the way, are really pretty, pretty full — it takes me about
10 to 16 hours to put an entire lesson plan together, with all the resources and
activities and suggested responses and scoring rubrics, the whole bit.
So finding the time to do it all is probably the most challenging for me, but
at the same time, all of those components in Schoolnet that we fill out when we
create these lessons are really, really valuable. There are things that, as a teacher, I
always thought about, you know, why I’m doing this and what my outcome —
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you know, what I expect to have the results be in this lesson. But the template
itself, you know, forces me to think about each of those little pieces that goes into
a lesson. And often in thinking about them, and having to write about them, it has
then shaped my lesson. I hope that makes sense, but —
Urbanski:
Absolutely.
Bowles:
Okay.
F:
That’s really exciting because we’re hearing from — especially from those of you
who took on the task of joining the Governor’s Teacher Network knowing this is
going to be a lot of work on you, to push it through just this one year. But I’ve
heard from so many of you how you can take that lesson in the future, and as you
run across resources, pop it up there, or once you teach it, it’s so easy to make
minor tweaks in it. And if you think about the 220 multiplied by how many units
all of you are putting up there for the Governor’s Teacher Network, that will
eventually make its way to availability across the state, how that will open up the
world for other teachers to go and borrow those lessons, make them their own,
tweak them, and you will be able to do the same.
So once we get a huge bank of homemade lessons, North Carolina-created
lessons, it’s going to be really powerful. What are your — what’s your thinking
about that for the future?
Bowles:
Oh, is that for me, Donna?
F:
For any of you.
Bowles:
Oh, well, what I would say to that is — I mean, it’s phenomenal. I mean, even just
my own units, to be able to go in and I think Katie had mentioned this earlier, and
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see everything right there in front of me, all — and I just click on links and it
takes me to the resource, or it takes me to the assessment, or whatever it is that’s
connected to that lesson, it’s so easy, and it’s wonderful. So any teacher going in
and finding these lessons can group them together and build their own kind of file
cabinet right online.
F:
Exactly.
Chapman:
Yeah, that’s right, and you can create a PDF of just about everything, so I mean, I
don’t have to worry about my paper files anymore. Everything is in the cloud, so
to speak.
Bowles:
Great, yes. I was thinking about that, but I was thinking that dated me but I
remember the days of having to go back into the file cabinet and find that unit or
find those resources. Not anymore; it’s all online.
Urbanski:
However, because it’s a PDF, because it’s a document that’s been uploaded, we
can print them out, and I don’t know about you, but every once in a while, I like
to just have something in my hand when I teach.
Chapman:
Yeah, absolutely.
Urbanski:
Call it a crutch, but it also helps — and this is something that I’ve learned just
from listening to all of you is that every once in a while, a teacher is not in his or
her classroom; they’re sick, they have something to attend, like maybe the
conferences that are happening this week. You can print out your lesson plans and
leave it for that substitute and now they know exactly where you were, and they
can just jump right in and work with your folks. There’s a lot of neat — gosh, we
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could go on for hours about the neat uses and abilities that people have outside of
just the people creating this. Wonderful, wonderful!
Well, Clark, we didn’t get you telling me the challenges that you might
have had. What are your thoughts, sir?
Chapman:
Well, something that was definitely an issue, but it’s mainly an issue for my wife
and my kids; I’ve been caught riding in the car with my laptop trying to get these
lessons in and my wife’s trying to drive. So those kinds of issues have been a
challenge in my family.
Urbanski:
But you know, the sacrifices we’re making right now — because you’re part of a
select group, a small fraternity if you will — or sorority — of people that are
actually building, and the work you’re putting through today, the average teacher
probably will not be doing that this weekend, but what you’re doing is a legacy
that will be benefitted, and I’m going to have you each speak to this, but the
benefits will be more than just today for you, or for your classrooms and your
students. It sounds like it’s going to impact people for quite some time.
Now, not everybody here was brand new — or not everybody here is well
versed and experience in Schoolnet. Were there, in particular — you’ve gone
through training; maybe you had training at your school, maybe you had some
that was sponsored by the state. Did you — did either of you have any real good
a-ha moments about the tool, as you’re building? And again, I’m focusing on the
two of you because our audience is interested to know, of course we’d love to
hear about the content that you’re putting in. Were there any a-ha moments about
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the Schoolnet tool itself you want to share with some of the people listening?
Katie, we’ll start with you again.
Rainey:
I think just my a-ha is being able to have it all in one place, you know; your grade
book, parent contacts, all of that. It’s very seamless; you know, kids being able to
check their grades. It’s just been totally different. My kids have been able to
check their grades and come to me and say, “Hey, did you put this in yet?”
Because they’re keeping me on my toes, and just being able to have PDFs of
everything. I know you guys have been talking about putting it in the cloud; well,
I’ve had a lot of technical difficulties throughout my years of teaching, so I print
out all of my PDFs and I still keep that paper filing cabinet, and just to be able to
have all that, and for it to look very professional, and seamless between the
subject areas.
Urbanski:
Great. Great, Donna, what about you? A-ha moments?
Bowles:
Well, for me, one of the things I discovered that helped me when I was writing the
actual lesson and activity instructions was to use — insert tables, but I started by
doing those in, like, Word documents; I would do my — because it was easier for
me using the Word document — Word to create the tables, and then just copy and
paste them over into Schoolnet, which was nice. And that was really helpful; it
helped me to organize my materials and information, and all the steps in an
activity to make it more, of course, visually appealing to the teachers, but I think
it makes it easier for them to follow, too. I use a lot of tables to organize.
Urbanski:
Excellent.
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Bowles:
Information — and then one of the things that I wanted to mention that was a little
bit difficult, too, was creating resources — you know, handouts and worksheets
— that were original, because I’d been teaching for so many years, I have so
many handouts and worksheets that I don’t even know where some of the stuff
has come from. And unless I could get permission to copy something, I, you
know, had to then go out and on my own, create something from scratch. And that
sometimes is difficult. I don’t know what the requirements will be for anybody
putting a lesson in there, but we could not put anything in without permission to
copy, because we didn’t follow the same rules a classroom teacher does, where
you have that, you know, license to copy anything as a teacher in education. So
that was challenging, too.
Urbanski:
And you know, I’ll speak to that briefly. There are copyright laws that we do need
to follow, and we need to be concerned with, so you’re speaking to something that
is alive and well throughout the state of North Carolina for all teachers putting
any resources in. And just as a gentle reminder, you do have at the very bottom of
your Schoolnet screen, there’s a link that does have — I’m not too sure the word.
I don’t have it in front of me. I’m going to pull up the screens here real quick, but
the very bottom of every page does talk about system requirements, and I believe,
a copyright — the copyright policy.
So your district leadership, your school leadership, they’ll want to get
together and make sure that they’re in compliance if there is original work there,
because if you put something in there that is not, you do not have the permission
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to, you could be putting your school and/or district in an unfavorable position.
How’s that? I’m not the lawyer so I don’t know, but I would imagine —
F:
And yourself, yes.
Urbanski:
And yourself, yes. So we do not recommend or endorse anybody just copying and
pasting anything they find on the Internet, because it’s free, right? Anything on
the Internet — one, we know that everything on the Internet is true, and it’s free.
F:
No.
Urbanski:
Darn it, that’s why I’m stuck [INDISCERNIBLE] I’m stuck in that mindset, darn
it. Yeah, there it is.
F:
But you can link to anything. You can link to any of those websites.
Urbanski:
Proper citations referenced and attributes, attribute — there’s a word there.
F:
The retrieval —
Urbanski:
There you go.
F:
Where it was retrieved —
Urbanski:
Absolutely.
F:
Yeah.
Urbanski:
All right, Clark, we’re going to wrap it up with you on this one question, then
move on.
Chapman:
Okay, well, the text editors — they were an issue at first, because we were given
those templates and I would type everything into those boxes in Word, and then
when I would copy and paste into the text editors, weird things would happen.
Like, I would press delete and it would add spaces, weird things like that. So what
I learned to do was just take all the formatting off of my Word document and just
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paste raw text, and then format within the text editor. So if I wanted to make
bullets, if I wanted to make a numbered list, I would just type the sentences or
copy and paste raw sentences. And then I would highlight the sentences and turn
them into a numbered list or a bulleted list.
Urbanski:
Now, did you play around with — you know, when you copy and paste, you do
have the feature that’s called paste from Word; did you use that at all?
Chapman:
Yeah, I tried that as well, and just every once in a while, things just get a little
crazy and it —
Urbanski:
Yeah.
Chapman:
It seemed just simpler for me to just paste that raw text and turn it into what I
wanted it to be once it got into Schoolnet.
Urbanski:
Okay. Yeah, and then —
Chapman:
[OVERLAPPING] how to adjust our style.
Urbanski:
Yeah, and you’ll find that with any tool, whether it’s going from any platform,
any tool, any browser, any software program, you’ll find that those darn little
formatting issues, if you just put in an attachment for me — a letter might be a
way to do it, or you can always just upload your files. That is one of the neat
things, as well.
Chapman:
Sure.
Urbanski:
Okay, I wanted to click on something here real quick.
F:
[INDISCERNIBLE]
Urbanski:
Before I move on, because I have a couple closing questions, and one closing
question I want — and I did have a question that was popped — question to the
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chat box. Let me open that up here so I can make sure I read it, and Johnny
Jackson [ph] — hey Johnny, how’s it going? Johnny writes, how do you get it to
accept a duration such as one or two weeks, or two to three days for lesson plans?
I have found this to be frustrating, he writes, and I hope — and please chat back if
this isn’t what you’re looking for — but when you first create your instruction
unit, lesson plan resource, you always have the same page where I give the
information, like I have here, just the title and subject. And under duration, you
can type in a number, but you have to wait to either toggle it from minutes, hours,
days, or week. Is this what you’re referring to when I actually want to say it’s
going to be a two-hour instructional unit versus —
F:
[INDISCERNIBLE]
Urbanski:
Two weeks. So go ahead and type back in the chat box, because that’s one way of
setting it up for a suggested or recommended time frame. Now, once I have
actually created my lesson plan, or my instructional unit — let me get out of this
real quick, because this might also be what you’re referring to. When I’m in my
lesson planner, and say I’ve actually scheduled this to my lesson planner, I can
edit and actually make it longer or shorter, and I probably do not have one up here
since I’m working live without a net right now. But I am able to take something
out of my lesson planner, and then based on — I believe I’m showing — this is all
showing across everybody here. Nothing is in this training site, but if I was to
have, like, say, on my lesson planner, I’ve scheduled for — I wouldn’t use my
personal calendar for this, of course, I’ve put something under my math first
section; it actually sits here. If I hover at the very end, I just do not have one to
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put on — I can grab one real quick. I’m able to edit here just by dragging or
deleting or playing with this, and that can add or detract time. If you want a twoday to be a three-day lesson plan, and so I’m going to just put one on my calendar
real quick, and of course, what did I do? I put it on my personal calendar, not my
math calendar.
But this might be the other day that maybe this is also, Johnny, what
you’re referring to; see, if I hover my mouse, I am able to drag this without even
going into editing. It has been programmed to be a two-day lesson plan; I just
grab this objects in a bag — or object in the bag, line plot lesson plan. I now have
made this an entire week. Maybe I’m making up for, well, it didn’t take. Maybe I
am — now it’s four days — maybe I’m trying to stretch out for snow days. Ever
hear of one of those, anybody? I know, boo hiss. But that would be something
that I would do to actually edit the time. Does that help?
F:
He replied.
Urbanski:
He’s replying that it will not allow you to type one or two in the two to three — a
one or two, or two to three, in the duration box. It’s only one number. Yes, that is
correct. It’s not a range. I’m sorry; that’s probably what you were referring to
earlier. I did not get that. It would have to be a specific time. So these are
guidelines; these are suggested. They’re not must-haves. I would recommend that
any time I look at a lesson plan, when I’m thinking about a core [ph] instruction, I
of course am going to see that somebody’s created this. It might not match my
style, or it might not match my pacing, so I might have to adjust it and then act
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accordingly on my lesson planner, which I just demonstrated. So hopefully that
helped.
F:
In the description box, I sometimes mention that although it’s a three-day lesson,
it could be shorter or longer depending on the, like, the assessment, whether it’s
done in class or out of class. So you can look at descriptions or add them yourself
to any lesson, if you think that time would vary.
Urbanski:
Excellent.
Chapman:
I do the same thing.
Urbanski:
All right, now I have — I keep flipping screens. I apologize here to you, folks.
This is just more or less my placeholder. One last question for our panel, and I do
see that there’s some other questions. We’ll get to those right at the bottom of the
hour as we kind of get ready to sign off here. Now, when you think about — the
three of you here, when you think about what you’ve done, I understand you still
have some time to go. This isn’t quite complete. Spring delivery, is that correct?
Chapman:
Correct.
F:
Yeah, May 10th, I think, is when all of it’s due. May 10th.
Urbanski:
So Donna, you mentioned about how it’s changing your life and your interest in
some other areas for you, your own personal research, and how you’ve brought
some of that excitement into the classroom. But for the three of you — reflect on
this for a second; how has this impacted your instruction as you’re working
through this? Like, think about what you’re doing in the classroom today; have
you seen results in your own student's performance, and if so, share a little bit
about that. And I’m going to go reverse order now. Clark, why don’t you start?
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Chapman:
Well, I’ve seen interest levels rise. When you make lessons more real and they’re
not just on a textbook or worksheets, they’re a lot more excited. And I have had a
PDL kind of feel or a STEM feel to them, so I think that added a lot to their
excitement.
Urbanski:
That’s awesome. Donna?
Bowles:
Well, I would reiterate what Clark said about the interest level, but I would also
say that the creating the lessons and trying to incorporate technology into all of
this, that was another requirement, at least that I had from my reviewer, was to
include technology in each lesson, if possible. So it’s made me much more aware
of the need to include that, and use it, and find creative ways to use technology
with the activities. Also, it’s helped me to think more along the lines of formative
assessments versus summative assessments; as I create a lesson, I’m conscious of
how am I going to know if the students are learning and succeeding.
Urbanski:
Excellent. Key points, I love that. Thank you, thank you. And Katie? Last —
[OVERLAPPING]
Rainey:
Echo the sentiment on the student engagement, but also my engagement in
teaching these lessons and seeing, okay, what works, what doesn’t work and you
know, that reflection piece as an educator, which is so vital. I have been more
excited to teach colonization and American Revolution this year because I know
I’m working on this and want to produce the best thing out there for other eighth
grade teachers.
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Urbanski:
Awesome. And that is my key point here: I did not speak specifically toward the
beginning — I wanted you to share it; the purpose of all this is that these
resources are shared, is that correct?
F:
Yes.
F:
Oh, yes.
Urbanski:
So if any of you’ve ever heard, oh, I teach social studies. There’s just not enough
for me. Oh, I’m in the visual arts, or I’m in the performing arts — insert your nonELA or math course here. GTN, you folks know this a lot more than I do, but
GTN encompasses the whole gamut, does it not?
F:
Yes.
F:
Yeah.
Urbanski:
So just imagine, folks, the ones that are listening on the line with us, not just these
three that represent three courses that you’ve heard about; we have the whole
spectrum, the whole curriculum, the whole sequence if you will — the education
sequence — each person is doing multiple instructional units, multiple lesson
plans, multiple resources with that, all to be shared out, coming by this May
deadline. We’re going to clean them up, put them into the Schoolnet environment,
so for this summer, while you’re planning your next school year, you will see
thousands of new resources encompassing all the subject areas within the class,
the courses that we teach here in North Carolina. Excellent.
Now, I always like to ask this very, very last question because I don’t
know everything and neither does everybody else in this room. What else should
we know? Related to your experience in GTN, Schoolnet; you’re dying to tell me
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you wish I would have asked this question. What else do we know? What else
should we know? Katie, I’ll start with you again.
Rainey:
Oh, you know — [OVERLAPPING]
Urbanski:
If you don’t have an answer, that’s fine.
Rainey:
Yeah, I really don’t have an answer because I think, you know, it’s just you’ve
got to dive in there and actually start using it to kind of have those questions. I
had those questions in the beginning, and I was lucky enough to be able to ask
other people and get an answer really quick. So I mean, just being able to dive in
there and try it and not being afraid to ask those questions; don’t just give up on it,
but really try to figure it out, because it is really a great resource.
Urbanski:
Excellent. Okay, okay. Donna?
Bowles:
I think what I would say is that to any teacher using Schoolnet for lesson plans,
these lessons have been designed specifically to the standards. And so if you, as a
teacher, don’t feel confident or comfortable teaching a certain standard or skill to
your student, you will find all sorts of lessons and activities to do that in
Schoolnet.
Urbanski:
Wonderful, thank you. And Clark, sir.
Chapman:
Well, two things: make copies as backups as you go along, in case something
does get corrupted. You have a backup. Plus, I’ve used the backups as
springboards for the next lesson. So it kind of spirals. The other point is to check
out the assessment items; I’ve been really experimenting with some of the drag
and drop features and those kinds of things. So I think they have a lot of potential.
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Urbanski:
Excellent tips. Excellent tips. Ladies in the room with me here? Any closing
comments? We’re going to move into a Q&A session in a moment. Were there
any last comments related to this?
Jackson:
I think it — this is Angela speaking. I’m a former principal and knowing where
Schoolnet started a few years ago, and listening to you guys today, and thinking
about the possibilities of one, the items that are in there, as well as working with
teacher leaders at your school to develop some exceptional things from people
that are on the ground, to me, is just so exciting. And listening to the three of you
share has me even more excited to see what these are and know that they’ve been
used by teachers in the classroom, not designed by curriculum writers. I think that
just makes them all the more valuable to teachers that are out there now in North
Carolina, looking, saying — and it also excites me when I know they’re all
standard space, because that was always my number one question that drove
teachers crazy. So thank you guys for sharing.
Gardner:
And I would also say that — kudos to those of you who are in the GTN, writing
these instructional sequences, because you have a large task. First, you had to
learn all the tools, then had to go through the copyright training because that was
very different from what we’re used to as classroom teachers, because this is
going to be published by the state, so all the copyright had to be taken care of. But
having to learn to use a tool like Schoolnet, which is very powerful, but it is
complex when you’re first learning it. And to rev up your ability to write
curriculum; we know many of you may have been curriculum writers in your old
school, or even in your district, but every time you go to another level of
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curriculum writing, it is more structured and more requirements, more
components, and more — it just takes a different skill base. So those of you who
are still standing and we give you lots of — great applause, because you’ve
learned a lot and what you have learned will help so many others.
Urbanski:
And I cannot agree wholeheartedly; this is so wonderful to hear. And it makes —
it motivates me. Listening to the people on this line motivates me and excites me
in what I do for the students of North Carolina, and I’m sure there’s probably
some other heads being nodded for the people that are still with us on the line.
Thank you all so much. And the three panelists; we’re transitioning now to the
final — I’m just going to kind of wrap some things up and give some updates, if
you will, or just where to get more information. But I want to personally thank the
three of you for taking the time out of your day to share with us everything that
you’re going through. This has been a great learning experience for me, just to be
able to interview you and hear what you’re saying. So thank you for your time.
The state thanks you for your hard work, as well, because as we heard you all
speaking, and the ladies here, my colleagues on the panel here, there are more
people that are going to benefit this — from all the hard work you’re putting in,
so thank you, from us to you, for what you’ve done, and are continuing to do.
All right — oh, I’m sorry.
Rainey:
I was just saying thank you.
Chapman:
Thank you for this opportunity.
Rainey:
For offering us this opportunity.
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Urbanski:
Well, now I wanted to kind of transition that this is just — we framed this from
the Schoolnet perspective. We really didn’t have the purpose of this — we really
didn’t — I can’t even speak today. The purpose of this was not really to have a
whole discussion on the fabulous work that’s being done, the requirements, the
deliverables, and the end uses and things of that nature, but I do have a feeling
there, Joyce, that we will be seeing at the CCSA — there might be some
presentations on this, and maybe Ties possibly. Are folks talking about this?
F:
Yes. This week we have several GTN teachers presenting at NC Ties. We have
more than 35, close to 40 GTN teachers presenting at the collaborative conference
on student achievement March 30th — that’s when that starts. I know that we —
there have been people across the state and lots of regional and statewide
conferences, and some national conferences, so that’s been — it’s amazing the
work that you’re doing and how that’s being shared beyond our state, even. And I
just wanted to say that there are some questions about — because some of you are
just learning about where to find these other webinars, so I’ve put already in the
chat — or in the questions bar, a link to the archives recorded webinars, and the
link to the updated webinars. Those — you can always google that, and find the
Schoolnet webinars on Google, too, on the DPI website.
Urbanski:
Now, on the screen here, I just want to transition because I know I want to respect
your time. We just went a couple minutes over the one-hour allotted time, but for
those of you that are interested in any information about Home Base and all of its
many happenings, all the exciting things that are coming up, or maybe some
known issues in the system they just want to alert some folks about, you can go to
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the Home Base website. The link is here on my screen, and you can see
information about what’s going on in the Home Base ecosystem, as well as you
can have it pushed to you in your email. That link in the bottom there is where
you could actually self-subscribe to the Home Base biweekly newsletter and have
all those updates sent to you every two weeks.
And you’re saying to yourself, man, I know this is not a touchscreen. I
can’t click on this, Dan. I promise, every person who is registered and every
person that is on this call will receive a copy of this slide deck and you’ll be able
to click on that once you have that, probably tomorrow, I’ll get it out to
everybody. And yes, I also have been recording this session, so you’ll be able to
get a clean recording of this that I’ll put on our Vimeo account, and I’ll send you a
link to that, probably tomorrow, as well.
F:
And Dan, we have one more comment from Jennifer Harper [ph]; I want to
recognize her because she is part of the network, Governor’s Teacher Network,
and she’s saying that she found the Schoolnet platform to be very user-friendly,
it’s improved her practices, the district template includes all the aspects of the
lesson that should be there. They’re designed to meet the needs of all students,
and she said using Schoolnet helped guide a teacher in writing lessons to ensure it
includes all that’s needed to meet student needs. So thanks for sharing that,
Jennifer.
Urbanski:
Absolutely.
F:
And [OVERLAPPING] I know that you’re also in the network and you wanted to
know where the GTN network — the lessons would be available, and Jasmine
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[ph], I think you’re in — are you in — I think she’s in Pathway 1, possibly, but
the lessons will be available — it’ll be past the summer, once they’re all fully
vetted and everything is complete. And so we’re looking into the summer and
beyond that to make sure that everything is cleaned up and it’s just like it needs to
be and approved at all level with some good vetting beyond the Governor’s
Teacher Network.
Urbanski:
Excellent, excellent. Hey, while I answer another question that’s going to be
coming here in a minute, or actually it is here and I’m going to answer, for those
of you who are still on the line, and you haven’t had anything to do for a couple
minutes, I’d like to give you something to do. I’ve put in the chat box the link that
you see on your screen right now, and it links out to — there’s a real short, brief
survey. I’d like to know your thoughts. Would you like, maybe, some constructive
criticism on what we can — get some feedback on what we can improve for the
next time? Take a moment to share some thoughts with us by clicking on the link
that is in the chat box, or just type it from what you see on the screen, and we do
take those — I take those very seriously because that’s how I personally learn and
grow, so I can help guide these webinars for the future, for people here to get
quality information out to you, each and every week.
And so while I’m doing that, I do have one last question that has been
typed in by Patricia. Patricia, thank you so much for being patient. Patricia was
kind of tying off of what Johnny was asking earlier, on the lesson planners. It’s
like, oh, man, you know, I’m high school and I teach on Mondays and
Wednesdays. I don’t teach Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so if I was to drag and
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drop what you just did, Dan, for my lesson plan like that objects in a box lesson
plan, if I dragged it over three days, well, it’s going to show that I’m teaching on
Tuesday and I teach Monday, Wednesday. Is there a way that I can get around
that? Is there somehow I can just put it on Monday and Wednesday? Well,
Patricia, I’m going to look to some of our panelists and maybe the folks that are
hanging on the line, they have a solution. I ‘m scratching my head saying, I would
probably put two lesson plans on my lesson planner, one copy of it — I mean, you
can add as many as you want — one copy on Monday, one copy on Wednesday. I
do not know the way personally that it could just say it’s going to be every other,
but you could — hey, I’m going to schedule it for Monday, and then I’m going to
go back and do a separate schedule for Wednesday. Boom. There it is. Hopefully
the people that are working with you would say, oh, wow, how’d you get it to do
that? And there you go.
So pipe back in the questions box if that’s met your needs, hopefully, and
for the panelists that were just on the line, here still, if you had maybe a work
around for that, I can’t think of any now offhand, but that would be my
recommendation.
Rainey:
Yeah, I doin’ know any. I don’t teach on an A-day, B-day schedule, so it doesn’t
— you know, that’s not something that I, I’ve encountered.
Bowles:
And I do think it’s important that when you look at a lesson plan that says three
days, to keep in mind that there’s block scheduling days and then there’s your
long scheduling day, if the classes are shorter or longer. So look to the description
to see if there’s an explanation as to whether it’s block or year-long.
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Urbanski:
Great points, both of you, yes. Okay, well, with that — Patricia is now writing
back and she teaches nine different grades; some classes are Monday, Friday;
some are Tuesday, Thursday, so there’s a little bit of a fun thing to do that, so
Patricia, hopefully this helps if you just, you know, put copies on there, and
maybe that works for you, so then you are on track. And same with the leadership
that are working with you; you guys probably have some interesting
conversations. You could share that with some of the teachers in your area, as
well.
All right, well, ladies and gentlemen, this here — my pleasure. You’re
very welcome, Patricia. This ends our webinar here today. I want to thank our
panelists again for participating, and the room with me here today — my
colleagues sitting in front of me across the table. Thank you so much for your
time and the support that you are doing as the leadership you’re working with, all
of what I like to refer to as the GTNers. Thank you for the work you’re doing for
the students and the educators throughout the state.
Again, ladies and gentlemen, this is being recorded. I will go ahead and
make sure that’s put out via email at the link for you, and the PowerPoint imager
that we’ve used here today, I’ll make sure I copy this email to you, as well, and
the email that you used to register is the email it’s going to go, so look for it there
in the next day or so, hopefully. Stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen; we do have
next week another webinar, and this will be taking that food chain that I was
talking about earlier — the hierarchy — yes, ladies and gentlemen, you can
manage your entire curriculum in Schoolnet, and stay tuned for next week where
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we’ll learn how. All right, that’s it for us. Signing out live here from Raleigh in
what we are going to call the great blizzard of 2015 part two; I hear we might
actually get a snow flurry tonight, so be thinking of us. Thank you everybody.
Talk to you next time.
[END RECORDING]
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